Genesee County Health Department

Better Life Through Better Health

Date:                           August 19, 2009

Release Date:             For Immediate Release         

End Date:                    September 18, 2009

Contact Person:          Suzanne Cupal, M.P.H.

                                    Community Health Analyst

Genesee County Health Department

Phone:                         (810) 768-7970

RE:                              Speak to Your Health! Community Survey Continues

Thousands of Genesee County residents are currently receiving a telephone call asking them to participate in a survey about their own health and the health of their community.  The calls and the survey are legitimate.  The survey, called the 2009 Speak to Your Health! Community Survey, is sponsored by the Prevention Research Center of Michigan (PRC/MI) and the Genesee County Health Department.  This is the fourth time that the survey is being conducted in an ongoing effort to monitor the health of Flint and Genesee County residents. 

The Genesee County Health Department strongly encourages anyone who receives a call to participate in the survey. The telephone calls to randomly selected Genesee County households will continue until approximately 1800 adults successfully complete survey.  The survey asks participants about a variety of health issues, including their own health status and behaviors as well as access to health care, neighborhood conditions, and more.

Daniel Kruger, Ph.D., a Research Professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, works for the PRC/MI and is the Principal Investigator for the 2009 survey.  Dr. Kruger also led the survey efforts in 2005 and 2007.  According to Dr. Kruger, Genesee County is one of very few counties across the country that has high quality data at the neighborhood level on health status, health behaviors, health attitudes, and health access.  “These data have been vitally important to the Health Department and to other Genesee County health-related agencies as they plan their work, set policy, seek funding for health programming, and measure the effectiveness of their work to improve health in the community.  I am always happy to talk about the many ways the Speak To Your Health! survey data benefit Flint and Genesee County,” Dr. Kruger said.

The Prevention Research Center of Michigan is funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is a partnership among Dort-Oak Park Neighborhood House; Faith Access to Community Economic Development (FACED); the Flint/Genesee County Neighborhood Roundtable; Flint Odyssey House, Inc. Health Awareness Center; YOUR Center; Greater Flint Health Coalition; Genesee County Community Action Resource Department; Genesee County Health Department; University of Michigan-Flint; and University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Results of earlier surveys are available at http://www.sph.umich.edu/prc or http://www.gchd.us/ReportsAndData/SpeakToYourHealth.asp or by calling the Genesee County Health Department at (810) 768-7970.  Results of the 2009 survey will be available later this year.

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